Look a Book: Winner of Orange Prize for Fiction

We Need to Talk About Kevin
by Lionel Shriver

We Need to Talk About Kevin. Let’s not.

I hated this book. Not only was the storyline hideously contrived, every line in every paragraph was too. This is a damning critique. I have never hated a book so much.

I hate film trailers, and I hate book covers. I have no desire to see into the future. I like a story to be like life. I don’t want to know where it’s going and I hate to second guess.

It horrifies me that I was 99% sure of this story’s twist, only three pages in. I deliberately don’t think about 'twists', or what they might be. Yet, this one was brutally shoved down my throat, like a screaming rat. I’m no detective. I get nothing out of being 'right' and far less out of being 'wrong'. The reward is in the mystery.

Yes, some books are both predictable and enjoyable, but this was not. Lionel Shriver forcibly pushed me - as a reader - towards a horribly pathetic anti-climax, with banal observations and a grating attempt to fake depth and insight. Had the twist not played out as predicted, for once I might have enjoyed being wrong.

To add insult to injury, having completed 468 pages of the most annoying read ever, I was greeted by this:
'Group questions that have arisen from the publication of We Need to Talk About Kevin in the USA'
There were two whole pages of them.

If I ever stumble across a group answering those questions, I may have to shoot every participating member in the head.

Sorry, I really had to get that out. The book has made feel dirty. I need to cleanse my brain.

So says she; she that has never written a book and is hardly qualified to comment.

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Download MP3:Dan Michaelson and The Coastguards – Ease on In (sorry, this link has died)



Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard - Em Are I. This is the best release from Jeffrey in a long, long time, but he’s let the outsiders in. It’s not ‘The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane’ and it would be far better if it were just Jeffrey and acoustic guitar.

Download MP3: Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard - Roll Bus Roll (courtesy of sonnyvenice.phpnet.org)




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Jeffrey Lewis with Laura Marling covering Eminem's Brain Damage